Cholesterol drugs may improve flu survival

October 30, 2009 4:49:33 PM PDT

Doctors may have a new treatment for swine flu that's already on pharmacy shelves -- cholesterol-lowering statin drugs like Lipitor and Zocor. A study released Thursday finds that people who were already on these drugs when they caught seasonal flu and had to be hospitalized were twice as likely to survive than those not on such medicines.

That's not proof that statins are a cure for flu. More research is under way to see if it might be a good treatment. The research involved 2,800 patients during the 2007-2008 flu season. Results were reported at a medical meeting in Philadelphia.